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Monday, March 14, 2011

CO.ZA suffers DDoS attack

Attempts to datamine the CO.ZA web Whois service causes an inadvertent DDoS attack which influences service availability
Many users complained about service problems on the CO.ZA web Whois service this weekend, and Uniforum now confirmed that they have experienced problems which resulted in delayed response times or degraded service availability.
“According to our investigations it appears that attempts to data mine the CO.ZA web Whois service has resulted in an inadvertent Distributed Denial or Degradation of Service (DDoS) attack,” said Theo Kramer, UniForum SA Chairman.
Kramer explained that their Whois system has been under severe pressure over the weekend as a result of what appears to be distributed data mining attempt on our web Whois service.
“Necessary remedial steps are being taken and we are monitoring our systems to ensure that the impact of this bot flood is minimized,” said Kramer.
Kramer also advised users to make use of http://captcha.coza.net.za or whois://whois.coza.net.za while they address this issue.
“The CO.ZA registration system, DNS system, EPP test system and alternate Whois systems were not affected,” said Kramer.